On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 02:17:23 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "Steve
R." quickly quoth:

Never mind, help is on the way. British Columbia is sending the giant Martin
Mars water bombers. I have seen them working when they fought some fires

I watched a video of one of the yellow monsters (Bombadier 415s?)
sucking up water and dumping it in SoCal the other day. That's
precision flying! I think it said they're 3,500 gallons. (Wiki shows
1,620 gallons. Hmmm...)

Martin Mars carry 7,200 gallons. (THAT's more like it!)
DC-10s carry 12,000 gallons.
Russian IL-76s carry 11,000 gallons. (15k capacity)

They now working on converting old 747s for fire planes: 24,000
gallons at a drop! Those will be a heavensend to large fires like
these.

Can you imagine the stresses on airplane frames when filling and
carrying those kinds of loads? Unreal!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_firefighting

near where I live. Back in the 1960s I used to park a Cessna 150 under the
starboard wing of one, with several other light aircraft. The Mars were
being converted to water bombers at that time.

Speaking of parking things under the wings of aircraft, I'll bet this
airline isn't very popular with foreign tourists.

http://www.animalliberationfront.com.../LionPlane.htm

--
Jewish Zen:
Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated, already?
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